7 Quick Takes

The concept of this post was stolen from Jayesel who did it on her blog (and I believe she stole it from someone else, too.  Ahhh, the internet!).  Seven quick little things I want to talk about but really don't merit their own whole post.

1. Today Scot begins his new job. Huzzah! He took the last week or so off work to get a bit of a break, rest, and recharge. He spent some of the time out of town visiting friends of ours and being leisurely. He so needed it as the last 5 months have been the very definition of stressful. (No really, look up the definition and you'll see "the first half of 2012 for the TKandB family.")  I'm desperately hoping that this is the start of things looking up. We have some adjusting to do to get used to a new schedule and I'm hoping the commute won't become overly onerous for him.  But, yay! New job!

2. I reported Jamie's daycare to the state.  I wrote a long letter detailing the whole sorry mess and sent it off last week. I haven't heard anything since so I don't know that anything will actually come of it. Still, it made me feel better to lodge a formal complaint. At least it will be on record.

3. Jamie is now fully registered for pre-school.  I can't wait to get him started.  I saw the facility and it's amazing.  AMAZING.  I have a parent orientation meeting in a couple of weeks where I assume I'll get all the details on daily routines and whatnot. He starts on September 5th and he'll be going Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9:00 am to 11:30 am. I've already started making a list of things that need to be done while the kids are out of the house.

4. Speaking of school, Liam starts school on August 23rd. Just 22 more days and he'll be a second grader.  A SECOND GRADER. I think it just hit me now - I've been looking forward to him starting school again because we're in the middle of end-of-summer-sassmouth but I failed to realize that OMG, SECOND GRADE.

5. I think we will only get one pumpkin from our plant this year. The one I hand pollinated is doing fabulously. But while the plant keeps setting fruit, for some reason the female flowers aren't actually flowering and then the fruits wither and fall off. I'm not entirely sure what the problem is (got any ideas, internet friends?) but at this rate only Liam will be getting a home grown pumpkin this Halloween.  I'd like to try this again next year because it's been such a fun experiment this year and if we do, I'm going to plant it in a different spot where it has more room. The place it is now, it just doesn't have enough room to spread out and I wonder how much that has to do with the lack of pumpkins. So, next year - larger area for it.

6. Liam passed his swim lessons with flying colors. Next year he'll be in Level III and in the mean time he can jump off the diving board and go down the big water slide all by himself. He's proven himself to be largely safe in the water and it's a huge load off my mind. Also, with Jamie now in a traditional pre-school, he'll be able to start swim lessons next summer - a year earlier than Liam did.

7.  I haven't talked about my diet in a long time. There's a reason - I'm a mess. The stress of the summer has finally overwhelmed me and I started gaining instead of losing. I was already thoroughly stuck where I was and now I put on at least 6 pounds. Frustrating beyond measure. I'm starting to climb back up on the horse but I don't know that I'm really making a lot of progress. Also, with two kids home full time, exercising has been almost non-existent. I've gotten some in here and there but really - I'm lucky to do it once a week, IF THAT. So. Yeah. I have a looooooong way to go and I feel completely and utterly defeated.  I wish this wasn't so damn difficult.